Paradox Quotes - Page 28

• She was a triumph over ugliness, so often more beguiling than real beauty, if only because it contains paradox. In this case, as opposed to the scrupulous method of good taste and scientific grooming, the trick had been worked by exaggerating defects; she'd made them ornamental by admitting them boldly.

  Truman Capote

  Real, Triumph, Admitting

  Truman Capote (2012). “Breakfast at Tiffany's”, p.38, Vintage

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• The endless, useless urge to look on life comprehensively, to take a bird's-eye view of ourselves and judge the dimensions of what we have or have not done: this is life as landscape, or life as résumé. But life is incremental, and though a worthwhile life is a gathering together of all that one is, good and bad, successful and not, the paradox is that we can never really see this one thing that all of our increments (and decrements, I suppose) add up to.

  Christian Wiman

  Eye, Successful, Views

  "My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer". Book by Christian Wiman, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 2, 2013.

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• Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Life, Spiritual

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• Exile is a dream of a glorious return. Exile is a vision of revolution: Elba, not St Helena. It is an endless paradox: looking forward by always looking back. The exile is a ball hurled high into the air.

  Salman Rushdie

  Dream, Air, Vision

  Salman Rushdie (1989). “The Satanic Verses”, New York, N.Y. : Viking

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• It is one of those simple but beautiful paradoxes of life: When a person feels that he is truly accepted by another, as he is, then he is freed to move from there and to begin to think about how he wants to change, how we wants to grow, how he can become different, how he might become more of what he is capable of being.

  Thomas Gordon

  Beautiful, Moving, Thinking

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• Anyone who wishes to combine domestic responsibilities and paid employment with the least stress and most enjoyment might start by pondering this paradox: the first step to better functioning is to stop blaming herself for not functioning well enough.

  Faye J Crosby

  Stress, Responsibility, Wish

  Faye J. Crosby (1993). “Juggling: the unexpected advantages of balancing career and home for women and their families”, Touchstone

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• There is the "you" that people see and then there is the "rest of you". Take some time and craft a picture of the "rest of you." This could be a drawing, in words, even a song. Just remember that the chances are good it will be full of paradox and contradictions.

  Brennan Manning

  Song, Drawing, People

  Brennan Manning (2009). “The Furious Longing of God”, p.40, David C Cook

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• A patriot without religion in my estimation is as great a paradox as an honest Man without the fear of God. Is it possible that he whom no moral obligations bind, can have any real Good Will towards Men?

  Abigail Adams

  Real, Men, Moral

  Abigail Adams, John P. Kaminski (2009). “The Quotable Abigail Adams”, p.62, Harvard University Press

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• Risk always brings its own rewards: the exhilaration of breaking through, of getting to the other side; the relief of a conflict healed; the clarity when a paradox dissolves.

  Marilyn Ferguson

  Change, Risk, Relief

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• The greatest cause of evil included all human motives in one giant paradox. Good and bad were so inextricably mixed that we couldn't make them out; bad seemed to lead to good, and good motives led to bad. The paradox is that evil comes from man's urge to heroic victory over evil.

  Ernest Becker

  Men, Evil, Victory

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• There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad in a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight.

  Jack London

  War, Thinking, Artist

  Jack London (1903). “Call of the Wild”, p.83

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• Only you can take responsibility for your happiness..but you can't do it alone. It's the great paradox of being human.

  Simon Sinek

  Responsibility, Being Human, Humans

  Twitter post from Oct 03, 2011

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• The more we grow in love and virtue and holiness, the more we see love and virtue and holiness outside. All condemnation of others really condemns ourselves. Adjust the microcosm (which is in your power to do) and the macrocosm will adjust itself for you. It is like the hydrostatic paradox, one drop of water can balance the universe.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Water, Balance, Holiness

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “Personality Development”, p.28, Advaita Ashrama

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• Africa is a paradox which illustrates and highlights neo-colonialism . Her earth is rich, yet the products that come from above and below the soil continue to enrich, not Africans predominantly, but groups and individuals who operate to Africa’s impoverishment.

  Kwame Nkrumah

  Colonialism, Groups, Earth

  Kwame Nkrumah (1965). “Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism”

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• The paradox of simplicity is that making things simpler is hard work.

  Bill Jensen

  Hard Work, Simplicity, Hard

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• One of the endlessly alluring aspects of mathematics is that its thorniest paradoxes have a way of blooming into beautiful theories.

  Philip J. Davis

  Beautiful, Math, Science

  Philip J. Davis, William G. Chinn (1985). “3.1416 and all that”, Birkhauser

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• There is another interesting paradox here: by immersing ourselves in what we love, we find ourselves. We do not lose ourselves. One does not lose one's identity by falling in love.

  Lukas Foss

  Falling In Love, Interesting, Identity

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• People have traditionally turned to ritual to help them frame and acknowledge and ultimately even find joy in just such a paradox of being human - in the fact that so much of what we desire for our happiness and need for our survival comes at a heavy cost.

  Michael Pollan

  Nature, People, Joy

  Michael Pollan (2013). “A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder”, p.196, Random House

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• This is one of the great paradoxes of suffering. Those who don't suffer much think suffering should keep people from God, while many who suffer a great deal turn to God, not from him.

  Randy Alcorn

  Thinking, People, Suffering

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• Actions are always more complex and nuanced than they seem. We have to be willing to wrestle with paradox in pursuing understanding.

  Harold Evans

  Understanding, Action, Willing

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• Although a system may cease to exist in the legal sense or as a structure of power, its values (or anti-values), its philosophy, its teachings remain in us. They rule our thinking, our conduct, our attitude to others. The situation is a demonic paradox: we have toppled the system but we still carry its genes.

  Ryszard Kapuscinski

  Attitude, Philosophy, Teaching

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• Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament....There you will find romance, glory, honor, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that: death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, that every man's heart desires

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Blessed, Heart, Men

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• When a paradox is widely believed, it is no longer recognized as a paradox.

  Mason Cooley

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• Two paradoxes are better than one they may even suggest a solution.

  Edward Teller

  Two, May, Solutions

  Edward Teller, Wendy Teller, Wilson Talley (2013). “Conversations on the Dark Secrets of Physics”, p.135, Basic Books

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• You are doomed to make choices. This is life's greatest paradox.

  Wayne Dyer

  Life, Wise, Choices

  Wayne W. Dyer (2009). “Staying on the Path: Easyread Super Large 24pt Edition”, p.109, ReadHowYouWant.com

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